New Economic Policies: A Historical Perspective I G Patel While the main thrust of the New Economic Policy is no douot sound, so great has been the excitement about the new policies and the cloud of controversy surrounding them that there is great danger of our losing our sense of a proper historical perspective. Are all the new policies, for example, all that new? Is there nothing in our past behaviour and belief that is still relevant in the economic sphere? Do we need indeed to discard our entire mental baggage? What is the rationale of the New Economic Policy and what are the assumptions underlying - its superiority? And what are the prospects that reality will match the rhetoric or the theoretical rationale?